Bain Capital, founded by Mitt Romney, has received significant amounts of its capital from government-worker pension funds.
According to NyPo, Preqin uses public documents, news accounts and Freedom of Information requests to track private-equity holdings. Since 2000, Preqin reports, the following funds have entrusted some $1.56 billion to Bain:
* Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund ($2.2 million)
* Indiana Public Retirement System ($39.3 million)
* Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System ($177.1 million)
* The Los Angeles Fire and Police Pension System ($19.5 million)
* Maryland State Retirement and Pension System ($117.5 million)
* Public Employees’ Retirement System of Nevada ($20.3 million)
* State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio ($767.3 million)
* Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System ($231.5 million)
* Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island ($25 million)
* San Diego County Employees Retirement Association ($23.5 million)
* Teacher Retirement System of Texas ($122.5 million)
* Tennessee Consolidated Retirement System ($15 million)
Got that? Everywhere you turn with Romney, he was using political connections to benefit his firm. When he wasn't benefiting from government-worker funds, he was taking over firms that he was able to gain large government contracts for.
The deeper one digs, the more and more it becomes clear that Romney was much less an entrepreneur and much more an opportunist using government and political connections to his advantage.